At the end of BJP national executive in Hyderabad recently, PM Modi asked BJP leaders to take out “sneh”yatra all over the country to reach Pasmanda Muslims. However, former MP Ali Anwar Ansari from Pasmanda Muslim group, in a letter, asked PM to end the hate campaign against Muslims and break his silence over blasphemy against Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him). Ansari questioned PM’s logic in launching a “sneh”yatra when hate statements and bulldozers also go on.
Syed Khalique Ahmed
NEW DELHI—One of the Pasmanda (backward) Muslim leaders Ali Anwar Ansari has questioned the relevance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appeal to BJP leaders to launch an outreach programme to approach Pasmanda Muslims by taking out “sneh” (affection) yatras all over the country.
PM made the appeal at the end of the BJP’s national executive meet in the first week of this month in Hyderabad after BJP’s victory in a by-poll in Rampur and Azamgarh.
“What’s the point in taking out a ‘Sneh Yatra’ if hate statements and bulldozers also go on?” he said in a letter addressed to PM Modi.
“This (sneh yatra) will prove effective only when communal harmony is maintained in the society,” he suggested.
Ansari, who is founder-president of All India Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz and a former Rajya Sabha MP, said that “Pasmanda Muslims have been the worst hit of all the campaigns of mob lynching in the name of cow protection, Ghar-wapsi, love jihad, Tablighi jihad in the time of corona pandemic or any temple-mosque conflict that have been going on since 2014.”
“Those killed, burnt, maimed, framed in police cases, and jailed due to such incidents were mostly Pasmanda Muslims,” he said in the letter posted to PM a week ago.
Drawing the attention of the PM towards the anti-Muslim rhetoric of his party leaders, he said that it was not only BJP MLAs and MPs who used highly provocative language against Muslims thus poisoning the communal atmosphere, even BJP ministers and chief ministers were on record to provoke people against Muslims.
“Even if we leave alone the BJP MPs and MLAs, don’t your ministers and chief ministers say on record that Muslims should be ‘buried alive’ or ‘sent to Pakistan’? Didn’t Home Minister Amit Shah ji call upon the people, at the time of Delhi Assembly elections when a peaceful movement of Muslim women against NRC and CAA was also going on, to ‘press the button in such a way that Shaheen Bagh gets electric shock?” the letter said.
He also criticized PM Modi for his remarks several months ago saying that people could be recognized by their clothes and this was interpreted by political analysts as an anti-Muslim comment. “Mr. Prime Minister, does it suit a person of as high a stature as you to say that you recognize people by their sartorial preferences?” the Muslim politician asked the PM.
As if these things were not enough to provoke Muslims, Ansari said that Muslim prayers were disrupted at different places, their mosques were attacked and blasphemy was committed against their Prophet by suspended BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma and now expelled BJP leader Navin Kumar Jindal.
Former MP also questioned the silence of the PM on the blasphemy issue. “Even as our country’s image continued to be tarnished all over the world because of this, you have not spoken a single word against it till date,” he said, adding “on the contrary, the Muslims intellectuals, journalists, and civil society activists, who raise their voice against it, are being put behind bars.”
He also asked the PM to stop the hate campaign going unchecked against Muslims.
Ansari also asked PM to conduct a census to know the exact population and socio-economic status of the Pasmandas and Dalits of all religions. He pointed out that the central government under him (Modi) had made reservations redundant by handing over the public sector institutions to private players. “Will you introduce the quota system in the private sector also?” he asked, saying, “If not, then how and why should Pasmandas trust your government?”
He asked if the PM would help the artisan castes revive their businesses that were devastated by demonetization, GST, and lockdown during the pandemic. “Will some steps be taken to give relief to the lives being devastated by increasing inflation?” he asked in the letter.
Stating that this friendly gesture towards Pasmanda Muslims was driven to get their votes, he said that Rangnath Mishra Commission and Sachar Committee had recommended Scheduled Caste status for about a dozen castes within Pasmanda Muslims. “But your government in a reply to the Supreme Court last year said that it will not accept this recommendation,” Ansari pointed out.
“Will you end this religion-based discrimination by increasing the quota of Schedule Caste?” he asked. “If not, then nothing fruitful is going to come out of the drum-beating by some greedy people,” former MP from Bihar commented.
Ansari said in the letter that Pasmanda Muslims were earlier ignored politically which is evidenced by their negligible presence in Parliament and state assemblies. “The process of their economic boycott has also begun. Will you like to reverse these processes?” the letter said.
“What is going to change if one or two ‘fards’ (persons) from the BJP background are made ministers or governors?” he asked, adding “Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Syed Shahnawaz Hussain, M.J. Akbar, Najma Heptullah and Arif Mohammad Khan have been seen supporting many controversial policies and decisions of the current government – arguably more than other BJP leaders. However, there is a big difference between being a Muslim and being a leader of Muslims who can empathize with them.”
